1st. The whole portion named of East Iran has been spared from all times the influence of the Semitic as well as Turanian nations, since the first extended themselves only toward the western side of the desert; the last, on their march westward, only at intervals passed from the high road, Merv, Nishabur, and Rei to the southern slope of the Djagatay Hills. 2nd. East Iran herself, in an earlier period, remained separated through the great desert, when the Shiite sect, the chain of solid union, embraced the Persian population of Iran; and, despite all the wildest sect-hatred, the traffic now is as great with the Sunnite Afghans and Heratis as with their western brethren. It is true that, despite all the fatigue of travel in the desert, despite all fear of the Beloochees, caravans go annually from Shiraz, Isfahan, over Yezd, Tebbes up to holy Meshed. Yet Khaf and Bihrdjan, situated south-east, are never touched upon; and then, as now, it was always the case. In the mutual intercourse of nations, language assumes foreign elements easiest and preserves them the longest. The Persian dialect of modern Iran is overloaded with Arabian-Turkish words. Fars in the south, as well as Mazandran in the north, is in this only a little distinctive. In East Iran, nevertheless, the borrowed richness of language is certainly less; and we find in much that Persian in which Firdusi, with a premeditated rejection of Arabic, wrote his great epic. In what concerns the use of old forms and words, the Persian of Bokhara is of that character, and especially we may name the Tadjiks in the first place; yet these last have too much lexicographical and grammatical material borrowed from the Turks; and this circumstance it is that has produced the conviction in our minds, that _in East Iran the purest and oldest Persian is spoken_.
As for the language, I should be inclined to cite the Khafi or the Sigistani as the primitive tongue of all the Iranians, yet, in regard to their ethnographical position in relation to the whole Iranian race, I would not venture to attribute that position to them in which the Buruts stand to the whole Turko-Tartar race. What branch of the East Iranian families may be the primitive is one of those questions to which no one could deny a high degree of importance, yet is the reply much more difficult as to the Turko-Tartar race. For the appearance of the latter on the stage of historical events is comparatively fresh, whilst the former stepped forward in a period of which we can hardly form a conception. We must, therefore, again repeat that the Sigistani or Khafi are named as the first among the East Iranians, only in consequence of their geographical position, and not from induction on the more primitive character of their branch.